Megan explains it all.

It’s just a stupid gimmick that will do nothing to make most people better off.

While I don’t like any taxes, I see the gas tax as a better way to raise money for government highway construction than others, because the costs are borne by the beneficiaries.

But, this proposal doesn’t do any good. Good would be to reduce spending.

It’s hard (impossible) to believe that Clinton and McCain don’t know this (or have advisors who know this). It’s just further evidence that politicians care less about the truth than about what will help them get elected. They’d much rather cause further damage and cater to the mistaken biases of voters, than advocate genuine improvements.

Obama may be against this particular example, but he’s got plenty of his own.

May 1st always makes me contemplate the tragic legacy of communism, and the stupidity of those who continue to romanticize the awful totalitarian ideas behind it.

I urge you all to review the great collection of articles in the May Day tradition at The Distributed Republic.

Here are some more of their collections from 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004.

Note: It seems that many of the links in these pages can be fixed by replacing “catallarchy.net/blog” with “distributedrepublic.net”

I don’t like Hillary Clinton very much. But, I’m happy that she won the Pennsylvania primary by a large enough margin to keep her in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, and to attract more donations (she raised $10M in 24-hours after the primary was called for her).

There’s a lot that I don’t like about John McCain, as well. His militarism is worrying. He shares the Democrats’ romantic vision of government. He’s all too willing to trample on individual liberty when he thinks it will enhance respect for public institutions, or would just be for our own good.

But, it seems that we’ll be better off with him in the White House than either Obama or Clinton. He’s much better on limiting spending and burdensome regulations, and supporting free trade. He’s likely to nominate better judges (including possibly two to the Supreme Court).

But, most of all, with the near certainty of Democratic control of congress, I’m hopeful that having an opposing-party president will give us the gridlock we need to prevent either branch from imposing too much damage on us.

So, I’m glad to see Clinton stay in the race, draining resources that might otherwise be used to win the general election, exposing weaknesses of both Obama and Clinton, and sowing the seeds of resentment when one of them loses the nomination.

There’s no great, feasible, result in this election. But, the longer the Democrats are fighting each other, prospects improve for the feasible result that’s least bad.

I didn’t watch the Democratic debate the other night, but Daniel J. Mitchell had a post about one exchange about raising the capital-gains tax rate on the cato-at-liberty blog that I found really disturbing.

MR. GIBSON: And in each instance, when the rate dropped, revenues from the tax increased. The government took in more money. And in the 1980s, when the tax was increased to 28 percent, the revenues went down. So why raise it at all, especially given the fact that 100 million people in this country own stock and would be affected?

SENATOR OBAMA: Well, Charlie, what I’ve said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness.

The Senator then proceeded to bash evil rich (sorry for the redundancy) people, so the moderator asked the question again:

MR. GIBSON: But history shows that when you drop the capital gains tax, the revenues go up.

SENATOR OBAMA: Well, that might happen or it might not. It depends on what’s happening on Wall Street and how business is going.

I’m not making any claims about the factual matter of which side of the Laffer curve we’re on with respect to capital-gains taxes (although, I am in favor of lowering taxes on general principle).

But, Obama didn’t even dispute the possibility that raising the tax rate could lower revenue. He wants to raise the rate even if it does lower revenue. He doesn’t just see taxation as a necessary evil to finance the programs he likes. He also sees taxation as a stick that he can use to punish the economically successful.

He calls it fairness.

I call it being an asshole.

Among the many reasons that I’ll never be a successful politician, is that I could easily see myself getting into big trouble for what I thought was a reasonable remark, and having it blown completely out of proportion.

But, I think it was pretty clever of the Clinton campaign to distribute “I’m Not Bitter” stickers after Obama’s recent “gaffe.”

It seems to me, though, that anybody who would parade around wearing one of those stickers, or who would deface his property with one, would be making it pretty obvious that he is bitter.

Perhaps not exactly in the way Obama was describing, but the self-contradiction is still pretty amusing to me.

I’m not a climate scientist, so I can’t speak directly to the technical arguments behind the global warming debate.

But, when I see claims of catastrophe, and moral imperative, and religious zeal about an issue, leading to calls for changes in behavior that most of the advocates would have supported even without the current “crisis”, I’m naturally skeptical about the wisdom of following their advice.

So, I thought that this post was quite interesting. Check it out (and the links and video) yourself if you’re interested. The bottom-line claim is that the predictions of major damage are not founded on the relatively strong science behind the warming effects of CO₂, but rather on the much weaker science of a positive feedback estimate that can multiply these effects. And, the estimates of the CO₂ effects have been falling, while the feedback estimates have been rising to maintain the frightening predictions.

There are many good reasons for us to be interested in progress with other energy sources and efficient technologies. But, it seems that Don’t Panic (about the global warming crisis) is still good advice for now.

I’m all for the efficient use of resources, but I think that the symbolism of Earth Hour (encouraging everyone to turn off their lights between 8 and 9pm tonight) is awful.

It reminds us that many who oppose modern comforts regardless of environmental impacts are using the specter of global warming to move us back to the dark ages.

And Google is helping, with their black-background homepage today.

Maybe Google should do something that would actually have an impact on energy use and shut down all of its servers for an hour. Maybe for a week! Or, maybe for a few hours every night. I’m sure the earth would really be better off then!

They could follow the progressive lead of that great earth-friendly country: North Korea. This picture of the Korean peninsula at night speaks volumes.

Nobody is going to make much progress at actually improving our energy-use situation sitting in the dark tonight.

I’m going to turn on a few extra lights at 8pm.

I’d rather make a symbolic statement supporting the Enlightenment.

Don Boudreaux doesn’t seem very excited about Barack Obama’s and Hillary Clinton’s recently proposed “solutions” for the economy.

His bottom line:

Almost all that any politician says on any topic other than political strategy should be treated with even less respect than would be accorded a professional circus-clown’s speculations about string theory.

Awesome.

Hillary Clinton says she made a “mistake” when she repeatedly gave a false account of having been under sniper fire in Bosnia.

I’m still trying to figure out which is worse for her as a prospective candidate…if she knowingly lied, or if she believed an elaborate false memory.

It seems like she’d like us to believe that the latter is true.

So, is she asking people to vote for her because of the experience she has, or the experience she thinks she has?

So, I’ve finally watched (and read) the entire speech by Barack Obama on race that so many bloggers (including libertarians) have been gushing about. I agree that Obama is very bright, and that his speeches (including this one) are very well-crafted and well-delivered. And, I think he did a good job of defending his refusal to completely disown Rev. Wright after the wide distribution of inflammatory video.

But, I didn’t really see anything new or brilliant in the speech that seems likely to lead to great consequences. He said some true things that most people don’t talk about. He pointed out that there are explanations for each of the different (often angry) positions staked out in the race controversies. He tapped into the strong feelings that many of us have about race, and our hopes that the problems can be solved.

But, with all of his stirring oratory, I didn’t see any evidence that he’s likely to improve things. I’m afraid he’s just likely to cause more and more people to fall for “Politicians Logic“, that:

1) Something must be done.

2) This is something.

3) Therefore, we must do it.

His focus on policy prescriptions are hard to find, but what I find isn’t very encouraging:

By investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations…Let us be our brother’s keeper…Let us be our sister’s keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well. This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools… This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don’t have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together… This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn’t look like you might take your job; it’s that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.

When I look at Obama’s policy prescriptions (in this speech, and others), I don’t see much that inspires hope in me. There is some good stuff, like more transparency in many areas of federal activity. But, I mainly see pandering to anti-trade irrationality, appeals to class resentment, proposals for the federal government to “invest” in every possible solution to people’s problems, anti-speech campaign “reforms”, favoritism toward unions, socialization of health care, increasing burdensome regulations, etc. The same old leftist drivel.

When I hear Obama, I feel like I’m hearing Peter Pan ask us to all clap our hands if we believe in fairies. Exhorting us to believe and hope hard enough to get these pigs to fly.

Well, I think that these are bad policies, and that no amount of hope and optimism will make them good ones. I’m sure that we can all think of talented politicians who persuaded the masses to follow them down the wrong roads. I understand that it feels good. I’m sure that new street gang members feel good about the solidarity, and camaraderie and shared commitments that they have. But, it’s a sham. It’s not in their, or our, interests for them to join these projects even though it feels good.

I don’t believe in fairies.

We survived FDR’s New Deal, and LBJ’s Great Society, and I’m sure we can survive Obama’s Perfect Union (or whatever inspiring name he gives this pile of policies).

But, I hope we don’t have to.